A new genius has appeared. To be honest, I wonder what kind of country Japan is.

An innovative course featuring five types of pasta

Primo Passo, which is already highly acclaimed among foodies, is a restaurant with a talented chef who won a Michelin star just a year and a half after opening. The innovative course that incorporates five kinds of pasta is already the object of desire among those in the know.

It's best to forget about any preconceived notions about the kind of tough guy wielding the frying pan. A clean-cut young man was cooking with a very honest attitude. It's an unnecessary side note, but it seems he was devoted to baseball in high school. It's refreshing.

The chef, Tomoyuki Fujioka, was born in 1992. After joining Hiramatsu, he worked at Ginza Argento ASO and other restaurants before moving to Italy and training in Naples for four years. He is such a talented chef that he was in charge of pasta at Quattro Passi, a three-star Michelin restaurant.
It must be something very acceptable for Italians to surrender their fortress of pasta restaurants to foreigners.

A sparkling, fully open kitchen

Now, if you go down the stairs and enter "Primo Passo" and proceed further, you will see a dining area with eight spacious counter seats in front of the fully open kitchen, which is so polished that it feels like the air has changed. This is a special seat where all guests can watch the chefs do everything.

His cooking movements are brisk and beautiful, with no waste. Some people might find it cute (laughs). This guy is sure to become popular.

First of all, the name of the restaurant, "PRIMO PASSO," means "the first step," paying homage to his master's restaurant name, "QUATTRO PASSI (four steps)." How humble.

A wonderful combination of Japanese and Western

The first dish was a consommé of blue fish. The stock was made with horse mackerel, mackerel, and sardines, and the toppings were sliced ​​Gensuke daikon radish and rape blossoms. This soup felt like a declaration from the chef that he wanted to maximize the flavor of Japanese ingredients and incorporate them into an Italian context.

In fact, the soup is clear and crisp, yet rich, with the radish and rapeseed flowers adding a spicy and bitter taste. The dill oil adds a Western touch, too. Thanks to the wonderful combination of Japanese and Western, all the taste buds are awakened.

Recently, it has become more common in Western-style meals, but I like the fact that the course starts with a hot soup, which has something in common with kaiseki and other Japanese cuisine styles.

It is not very wise to frame cuisine in a genre, but the chef's current cuisine is probably Japanese-Italian, in the sense that it combines Japanese spirit and Western learning, as well as Japanese ingredients (and techniques) and Italian techniques (and ingredients). This is just my own hunch, but there may come a day when he will no longer call his cuisine Italian or French, but will instead lean more toward "Japanese."

The amazing perfection of fried pizza

The next amuse bouche was "Ricotta Scarmozza Parmigiano Prosciutto". The ball-shaped Neapolitan local dish fritta pizza (fried pizza) was filled with creamy ricotta and three other types of cheese. On top of the ball was a super thin slice of prosciutto. Is this the robe of a heavenly maiden? (laughs) It was very light.

The prosciutto is cold and the cheese inside the sphere is piping hot, so being able to taste both hot and cold at the same time is an exquisite pleasure.

The level of perfection is quite amazing. It's a dish you definitely want to try when you come to our restaurant.

The manual ham slicer placed in front of the guests is actually made by the Italian company "Berkel" and is apparently the best model that can slice ham extremely thinly. The face of the chef who is operating the machine seriously is full of confidence and joy.

Moving on to pasta: Japanese Capellini

And now we move on to the five types of pasta.

The first dish is cold thin noodle capellini. The sauce is made from kelp and clams, and it is topped with Kyoto bigfin reef squid and homemade dried mullet roe. The refreshing taste of this dish is largely due to the Japanese ingredients such as the dashi and sudachi juice.

The alcohol that the sommelier paired with the sake was also a real treat. It was "Senkin," a sake from Tochigi. The sweet and sour unpasteurized sake met with seafood stock. The sensation was like eating durum semolina somen noodles as a side dish to go with the chilled sake. The umami of both ingredients was amplified. It was a wonderful pairing.

The linguine with tomato sauce is amazing!

The dish I thought was the best that night was the Linguini with Tomatoes (top photo).

The only tomatoes used are the "Petit Puyo" mini tomatoes from "Pomona Farm" in Taki-cho, Mie Prefecture. The sourness is extracted from the red tomatoes and the sweetness from the yellow tomatoes, and the sauce is made by mixing them.

The sauce is orange because it is made by mixing red and yellow. I heard that it is made only with tomatoes, basil, and olive oil. This sauce is the ideal form that the chef finally encountered while training at Quattro Passi, but of course, Chef Fujioka reconstructed it using Japanese ingredients.

Although the sauce looks ordinary, when you put it in your mouth, the taste is so amazing that you can say you have never tasted anything before. The sweetness and sourness are sublimated into a very pure umami taste. You can taste the basil, but it is not bitter at all, and there is also the fresh greenness of the olive oil. The balance of these is perfect. The chewy al dente linguine is also good. It's quite impressive. No, I'd say it's agonizing!

I still remember the incredibly natural and delicious pomodoro I had at a Michelin-star restaurant in Sorrento, Italy, 12 years ago, in the particularly delicious tomato season of June, but tonight I had an even better experience.

This was paired with Tochigi's "Saika Umeshu", which is delicious on its own but also makes an excellent pairing.

A dizzying succession of pasta dishes

This was followed by homemade tortello, like dumplings floating in a soup of prosciutto, daikon and lime (the dumpling fillings of shiitake mushrooms, lotus root and dried tomatoes were outstanding!), and homemade Beni Haruka gnocchi topped with black truffle, each of which was excellent.

The idea of ​​placing five of their specialty pasta dishes at the core of the course is brilliant. That's the impression I got after finishing the meal.

The chef understands the Japanese urge to eat as many different kinds of pasta as possible. It's clever. Moreover, instead of being a carbs feast, the ingredients and noodles are equally present in the dish, with a delicate balance. What's more, I was amazed at his skill in seamlessly blending Japanese and Western cuisine.

The charcoal-grilled beef and desserts are full of style

I was quite satisfied by this point, but the main course of charcoal-grilled "Bishogyu" beef was also amazing. Although it was sirloin, it wasn't greasy at all, and the flavor of the meat overflowed when I chewed it. I heard that it was from a 32-month-old cow. The side dish was sauteed Italian vegetables and shallots pickled in vinegar, and when eaten together, the acidity brought out another flavor of the meat.

Also, the "Prosciutto Melon Mint" sandwiched before the main course was genius in that it combined the ham and melon with mint. The three ingredients flooded my mouth, sending pulses of intense umami into my brain.

The dessert "Strawberry Pistachio" was a combination of strawberry, pistachio, and roasted green tea ice cream, with crushed white chocolate. The tastefulness of the composition was astounding.

The menu changes approximately every two months.

Either way, after finishing the course, guests will have reaffirmed their love for pasta and will be aware that their love for it has grown even stronger. Not just the pasta, but each and every dish is delicate yet powerful. "Primo Passo" is a one-of-a-kind restaurant that makes you want to keep watching its future evolution.

PRIMO PASSO

Address: ACN Tsukiji Building B1F, 5-11-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
TEL：03-6826-9672
Business hours: 17:00-23:30, 17 sessions: 00:20- and 30:XNUMX-
Regular holiday: Tuesday and Wednesday
Course dinner: 16,500 yen (tax included, service charge not included)